Duty Calling
by love and petrichor
Summary: "Universal roaming," he says, answering the silent question in her eyes. "It's fairly simple. You can call anyone anywhere in the universe. Literally." Sam/Jack.


The military side of Samantha Carter pulls out her gun immediately when a strange man walks into her office on Atlantis and explains that he sort of snuck in the oceanic city with his spaceship without getting caught by the guards. On the other hand, another side of Sam feels comfortable around this person, as if he, in his peculiar outfit of a brown trench coat over a pinstriped suit, provides a great deal of safety for her. She knows this hunch isn't from his wide-eyed puppy dog face because in her time interacting with aliens, looks can be deceiving.

She thinks maybe it's from Jolinar, the Tok'ra from long, long ago when the Stargate program was still new in the eyes of Earth. It's interesting, because she hasn't thought about the naquadah in her blood for a while.

"My goodness," the man says, raising his hands and jumping back. Sam could grasp the thick English accent in his voice. "You humans. Shoot first, questions later."

"Not really," she replies. "Just defending myself from a possible threat. Alien, if I'm lucky."

"Ah, right you are. I mean, sure I look human, but I'm far from that."

"Care to tell me who you are?"

She watches, gun still in her hands, as the man drops his arms and buries his hands in his pockets. This sparks a pang in Sam's stomach as the very act reminds her of something she doesn't want to think about.

"Time Lord," the man then says. "If you want to be specific. That's my race. But I'm called the Doctor."

"Doctor—" He interrupts her question as if he's hears this a million times before.

"…who? Oh, just the Doctor. Trust me, Samantha, you don't wanna get into detail with that."

"You know my name."

"Of course I do! You can't go anywhere near this part of the galaxy without hearing about SG-1 and the Stargate Command. It is a great honor, it truly is, Samantha Carter."

She lowers her gun slightly, mouth agape. At the same time, she feels a bittersweet nostalgia in her heart, reminding her how much she misses her old team. Mind you, she loves Atlantis, but she finds herself thinking about her past more than she should.

The man, or the Doctor she guesses, notices her pondering expression and smiles a bright, teethy grin that Sam would smile back at if she weren't so caught up in the fear of this possible alien threat.

"I read," he says, answering her silent question. "A lot."

She doesn't know what he means by that, so she steers the conversation in another direction.

"You're far from human, are you?"

"Very, very, far. Also, can you put that gun down? It's making me very unsettled. I promise I won't do anything bonkers. I have no reason to, anyways."

Sam sighs. She wonders what would happen if she actually went to sleep at a normal time so she didn't have to deal with the Doctor. Trusting the other side of her that isn't military, she lowers the gun, but keeping it in one hand just in case.

"You're glad I didn't call security," she mutters. "How did you even get past the guards in the first place?"

"Psychic paper," he replies, pulling out a leather ID holder. "Shows whatever you want to show people."

"It's blank."

"Of course it would be. Only true geniuses can look past it. Like Shakespeare."

Sam fights her need to ask what he means by Shakespeare forces herself to get straight to the point.

"What exactly are you doing here?"

He doesn't answer right away, but walks around her office, examining every little trinket along the perimeter of the room from medals received in honor to picture frames of the most important people in her life (something that she, right now, does not want to think about). He's taking his sweet time and Sam doesn't really care. It's 0300 hours and she decides this is her break from working on paperwork for three hours.

Finally, the Doctor walks around one of the leather chairs in front of her desk and takes a seat. At the same precise moment, Sam decides to sit as well. The small ache in both her back and knees remind her that she isn't as young as she was when she first stepped through the Stargate those many years ago.

"Three million light-years."

Sam perks up, her thoughts about morality being pushed back into the dusty corners of her mind. She immediately recognizes the astronomical distance and tilts her head at the Doctor.

"The distance between here and Earth," she answers.

The Doctor smiles, yet something in his eyes makes Sam believe there is more in store.

"You know," he continues. "I've lived a very, very long time and that's quite a distance between two humans like you."

She almost stops breathing as her heart rate pulses. A face flashes through her mind, one she's known for a very long time. A face that makes her brain uncharacteristically mushy and knees weak. A face that brings out a whole new side to Samantha Carter, a side contrasting to her tough military shell.

Surely this Doctor man isn't thinking…

"I…" Sam tries to find the right words to address herself. For the first time in a long time, she is speechless "How do you know?"

"I read," he repeats. "But I also read between the lines. There was something more than saving Earth and almost dying, wasn't there?"

She swallows. This man, who knows all about her and Stargate Command, a man who she's only known for a few minutes, manages to break through each wall. Therefore, she lets her silence respond to his question.

"No one's allowed to wait that long and then have distance separate them once again."

There is a glint in the Doctor's eyes that makes Sam believe that this man is right. From his gaze, she knows he has seen a lot, experienced a lot, and lost too many loved ones in his supposedly long life. His eyes seem too old for his young body.

"It's hard," she then says. "With him as a general, me as a colonel, and both of us being commanders. I just…"

She lets her sentence hang in the air as silence falls between the two. Her eyes cast down to the paperwork she should be doing while the Doctor leans forward towards her desk, looking at her with a thoughtful expression.

"Do you have a phone?"

His voice jolts Sam out of her train of thought, and the seemingly irrelevant question makes her lose her composure for a bit.

"I'm sorry?"

"Phone. Cell phone. Cellular device, telephone."

Sam blinks twice, confused and unsure of what to say.

"Yes, I do have a phone, but I'm on Atlantis. Obviously there's no use for it here."

"Now there is. Gimmie."

"You're alien," Sam mutters, narrowing his eyes at him. "Who knows what you'll do?"

"Oi, you're human. Who knows what you'll do? To me?"

The colonel rolls her eyes at this man's sassiness as she reaches into her bottom drawer, pulling out her cellular device. The oblong object is cold under her touch from the general coldness in her office and from the lack of use. He smiles as he takes the phone with enthusiasm. Sam's grip on the gun tightens as the Doctor pulls out a stick-like technological device.

"Hey, hey," she says, her voice growing higher and higher out of fear. "What in the world is that?"

The Doctor looks up and smiles.

"My sonic screwdriver."

"Sonic screwdriver? A screwdriver that's sonic?"

"Finally, someone gets it!"

Curiosity peaks in the scientist side of Sam, but the military side of her is both alert and annoyed if she were to die right that instant due to him.

However, the scientist in Sam also gets annoyed trying to figure out what in the world the Doctor is doing pointing the sonic screwdriver at her phone. All he does is presses a button, turning a blue light on at the end of the device, and soon the screen of the phone is turned on. He glances at the screen for a few seconds before handing it back to her.

"All done."

"This better not be a bomb or something," she mutters.

"Ah, I wouldn't do that. With the other options you've had over the years, it would be downright cruel.

Sam rolls her eyes before glancing at the screen. "Universal Roaming Activated" flashes on the screen, something she's never seen before.

"Universal roaming," the Doctor says, answering the silent question in her eyes. "It's fairly simple. You can call anyone anywhere in the universe. Literally."

She freezes, her gaze flickering back and forth from the Doctor to the phone screen. Her heart skips a beat when she pieces the puzzle together and figures out why this man came to visit Sam in her office.

"You're serious?" she asks.

"It's the least I can do. I know that beam transportation can be a bit weary and it's hard to just walk through the Stargate every day. Call him. You two need it the most."

Oh, if what the Doctor is saying turns out to be false, Sam's military side of her will reach out and strangle the man.

Her thumb presses speed dial one and for a few seconds the analytical side of Sam chastises herself for placing so much trust in an alien who is essentially a stranger.

To her surprise, the sound of ringing echoes through her ear like the sound of the small hum of the engine echoing through the hallways on Atlantis. She won't admit it, but she's sort of excited. Her heartbeat feels like thunder in her chest and she's gripping the phone tight to try to ease her trembling hands.

"Hello?"

He answers on the fourth ring, just when Sam thought he wasn't going to answer. And at this point, she thinks her heart is going to break through her chest and that she's probably visibly shaking. She's fine with that, but she tries her hardest not to tear up in front of the Doctor. Air Force Colonels don't cry.

She glances at the Doctor with a bewildered look, and he just gives her a hopeful smile.

Sam doesn't say anything just yet and lets the sound of his low, husky voice reverberate in her mind. She glances at one of her clocks in the room: a clock that tells time on Earth. It's almost one-thirty in the morning there, so she must have woken him up.

"Hello?" he asks again, sounding groggy and slightly irritated. "This is General O'Neill speaking."

Sam smile widens and she fiddles with the pen resting on the desk in front of her.

"Good evening, sir."

There is silence on the other side of the phone.

"Sam?" he asks. She hears a rustling of sheets and thinks that he's probably sitting up from his bed or turning on the light.

"Hi, Jack."

"Nobody told me you were heading back to Earth."

"Actually, I'm still on Atlantis."

He doesn't respond for a few moments and Sam couldn't help but chuckle. She pictures Jack with a confused expression on his face, just like those many years ago when she would try to explain her technobabble to him.

"Sam?" he replies. "It's November. It's a long way from being April Fool's Day."

"No really, I still am on Atlantis. Long story short, I just met a man who changed my phone settings to 'Universal Roaming.' It's great, I can call anyone anywhere in the universe."

"You met a man? Samantha Carter, should I be concerned?"

She knows he's joking and she thinks about how much she's missed his childlike demeanor.

"Of course not," she replies. "You know that I'll always love you."

"Mmm, so very cheesy. My favorite flavor. So, 'Universal Roaming', you say? It sounds like a T-mobile plan gone intergalactic."

Sam then remembers about the Doctor. She glances up and finds that he isn't in the room anymore and she can't believe that she didn't see him leave her room.

"Hold on," she then says, standing up and making a beeline out her office.

Luckily, she finds him, hands buried in his pockets, strolling down one of the deserted hallways. To her surprise, she finds a peculiar blue telephone box sitting against the wall where the hallway ends.

"Wait!" she calls. He turns around with a smile on his face. "Thank you."

The Doctor nods, opening the door of the phone box. Sam wonders if that's his spaceship, albeit being a pretty small one.

"Anytime," he says. "Like I said, no one has to wait that long to be separated again. Just one thing, don't share it with other people. I don't usually give Universal Roaming out to just anyone. You two deserve it."

"Will I see you again?"

He shrugs.

"I'm a space and time traveller. I'm sure we'll bump into each other one day or another."

Sam nods and watches the Doctor step inside. However, she sees something that even the scientific side of her gets stumped. A wind picks up and she hears a whirring noise, slowly growing louder each coming second. Soon enough, the blue telephone box literally disappears right before her eyes. It feels almost magical and unreal. She thinks maybe the Doctor—this so-called Time Lord—comes from a technologically advanced society if he's able to travel in time, much less space. But she pushes her growing curiosity aside, because she's on the phone with her significant other who's three million light-years away.

It feels like a small weight has been lifted from her shoulders, now that she gets to hear the sound of his voice again.


End file.
